Apple wanted both …no doubt. It's just that the hardware price/tech dictated that the iPhone come out first. Gruber is talking more about the UI experience …not the hardware itself. Apple clearly set out to build a touch PC, and the iPad was the result. The iPhone, while an awesome piece of technology, simply isn't meant to be used for hours at a time. There is never going to be a time where looking at a website or pictures or email or videos is going to become just as easy to do on a pocket-sized device. The iPad UI is going to be the FULL multitouch experience. The iPhone is always going to be the "mobile" multitouch experience.

Here's a question...will my iPhone data plan cover this device too?Of course not. So I would be expected to pay another $30.00 a month? LOL. No freekin way.

I would suspect if you already have an iPhone AT&T 60 buck account , I would think you would get a discount off the 30 iPad plan <-- thinking since if your on your iPad that means your not using your iPhone

Maybe not Steve, AT&T is already complaining 5% of their clients have an iPhone and they consume 40% of AT&T's bandwith... They might do nothing but take your extra $$, and figure it's "payback" !

Maybe not Steve, AT&T is already complaining 5% of their clients have an iPhone and they consume 40% of AT&T's bandwith...

OMG.. what a load of horse shiit from AT&T. Did they not think the iPhone was going to be a huge success and suck lots of bandwidth??The are lots of smartphones that do all the same things as an iPhone... they don't complain about them on other networks.

Pah!Don't partner up on a device that is going to tax your network if it can't handle it.Besides.. at a $30.00 premium over the usual bloated charges they should be able to take whatever steps are needed.That's $360.00 a year times how many iPhones? Millions.

Wiki says..

Approximately 6.4 million iPhones are active in the U.S. alone.

Let's assume a safe margin and figure that half of those are on the $30 data plan. (it was $10.00 initially.)That is 1,152,000,000.00 annually.Add in the $10.00 guys...that's another 384 million.Somewhere's around 1.5 BILLION in Data plan monies.

Add that money on to funds they already have allocated for building out their infrastructure...

Get off your arses and build a better infrastructure ...@#$%^& AT&T.They have a winning cash cow on their hands and are complaining about it.

"If it turns out that President Barack Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent, hard-line, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world but not with Republicans? Maybe he’s not the problem."

yeah, clearly the iPhone is good for AT&T. they're just pushing the limits on what they can get away with before complaints about poor network get too significant. as long as iPhone sales show growth, then that's a clear sign that news of poor network performance haven't cut into AT&T's profits. but AT&T also knows that the growth is directly tied to their need to build/improve their network. i suspect they'll improve it just enough to maintain the status quo of a lot of complaints, but not pervasive complaints. doh.

"If it turns out that President Barack Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent, hard-line, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world but not with Republicans? Maybe he’s not the problem."

In addition, AT&T said it worked closely with Apple to plan for connectivity demands related to the use of the iPad. But it said it largely expects the iPad to be used in coffee shops and at home, where users can rely on Wi-Fi, as opposed to dragging down the company’s 3G network.

"If it turns out that President Barack Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent, hard-line, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world but not with Republicans? Maybe he’s not the problem."

MicMeister, I think you are missing the point of this device. You seem to be wanting just another laptop. I'm pretty sure Apple's vision for the family is one central "full fledged" computer, and a cheaper satellite device for everyone else in the family. You'll import and edit all your photos/videos/etc. on the main computer and the results will be available to everyone that's interested.

It's not going to be for everyone, because some people do things like code websites or work in maya for fun. (I'm guessing you fall into this category) If the device doesn't do what you enjoy doing a large percentage of your time it would be a "flashy useless gadget". Fortunately it's going to do practically everything I want it to (and the majority of consumers). The fact that it's a giant/super iPod Touch is what's selling me. It'll be something I can use for hours at a time on the couch …unlike an iPod Touch, which is too small for casual use.

Nah, I'm not missing the point of this device. I'm missing the point of putting a crippled OS on it, which is clearly limiting what it is intended to be used for.

The points already made about not being able to have your AIM, Skype, Messenger and/or whatever IM you prefer on at the same time you're surfing and/or checking and sending email are true, it's crippling to say the least. Especially for a web device. Lot of my use with the MacBook is also incidentally surfing the web on our couch, and it also involves skyping, IM'ing, sometimes IRC'ing with my friends, sharing links, reading and responding to emails, billing clients (Numbers->PDF->email) etc.

And especially, if this thing is intended to be a satellite device, and with a Wi-Fi connection, the ability to have it connect to a media server, NAS box, whatever, for videos, music etc. would make even more sense.

Lately I myself have been looking into NAS boxes (Time Capsule is not an option for various reasons) to connect one into the router, perhaps with two or three drives to have our household laptops backup to one and also to have all our media files on it. Then I wouldn't have to hook my mobile drive onto my laptop every time I want to listen to my music - makes no sense to keep it all - some 90 gigs - stored locally on the laptop.

This Apple's direction of moving to closed system architecture is, well...

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